


Repercussions

by IsThereARealLife



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, Rogue One Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 15:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8923141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsThereARealLife/pseuds/IsThereARealLife
Summary: The events of Rogue One have different effects on different people, for better or worse...





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about Rogue One and I had to get them out. Sorry.
> 
> Also thanks to [Ishita](http://www.akadefenders.tumblr.com) for betaing and letting me share the angst with her

  
I.

Poe walks into the cafeteria one evening for dinner to see his father hunched over a table in the corner. Something is wrong. He hitches up his too long pants no one has had time to hem yet, and totters over. “Papa?” He tugs on his father’s sleeve. “Papa, what’s wrong?” 

Poe’s father sits up a little so he can look down at Poe. His eyes are red and his face is blotchy. He wraps his hands under Poe’s arms and lifts him up to his lap. “One of Papa’s old friends from training died today. His name was Cassian Andor and he was one of the bravest men I ever knew.”

Poe’s eyes widen and he stays silent, listening solemnly as his father tells him stories of Captain Cassian Andor, head of rebel intelligence, and the ridiculous pranks they would play on each in training. He told him a little of the missions they ran together as well, and how he died to give the Rebellion a chance against the Empire. “He and his crew might just have turned the tides in the war, Poe. He was a good pilot. A good man…”

It was late now; the lights slowly turning off. Poe’s eyes are valiantly fighting to stay open but he wouldn’t stay awake much longer. Kes carries his son back to their quarters and lays the boy down on the bed. Just when he thinks he’s asleep, Poe whispers, “Papa, do you have a picture?”

Kes inhales sharply but reaches directly into a pocket and extracts a worn, sepia-toned photo. Two men are grinning at some joke, not looking at the camera, each with an arm around the other’s shoulder. Not a care in the world. Poe recognises one as his father. The other must be the great Cassian Andor.

Poe nods and closes his eyes. “’Night, Papa. I love you.”

“I love you too, Poe.” He pushes back the hair on his son’s head – it’s getting a little long – then climbs into his own bunk to stare at the dark ceiling for the rest of the night.

 

The next morning, when Kes tells Poe he needs a haircut, Poe refuses. He is absolutely adamant. He’s always been a little stubborn, but never this obstinate. He sits there on his bunk, little arms and legs crossed, an angry pout on his face. “No!”

“Why not?” Kes asks, totally lost.

“I wanna be like Cass’n ‘Dor. Don’t wanna have a haircut.”

Kes doesn’t know whether to laugh or start crying all over again. So he ruffles his son’s hair and swallows around the rapidly forming lump in his throat, saying, “Okay. Okay then.”

 

A week later, Poe is running around the base in tiny brown pilot’s jacket. When he grows out of it, he somehow comes upon another, probably “repurposed” from a supply cupboard. He trims his hair occasionally, and by his early teens, he has bangs that are definitely not regulation for his first year in flight training, but no one has ever been able to make him cut them off. He’s wearing a proper leather pilot’s jacket now, still a little big but he reckons it’s a pretty good likeness to Cassian Andor’s.

He’ll grow into it.

 

II.

The image of a man appears on the screen at the front of the room.

“This is Bodhi Rook. He was a defector. He betrayed the Empire, our predecessor.”

Another image, of a base on fire and being fired upon by Empire forces.

“This is what happened to him.”

No one in the room moved. They barely breathed.

“This is a lesson for you all.”

They all nodded.

"Don’t defect. Don’t betray the First Order. Or you will be eliminated. Painfully.”

They all nodded again.

That night, back in his cell, FN-2187 stared at the ceiling. Bodhi Rook. Cargo pilot. He ran away. He helped steal weapons plans. He helped cripple the Empire.

 

The name Bodhi Rook is heard many times throughout conditioning. Don’t be like him, you will die.

During leisure time, it was the last one there who had to play the part of Bodhi Rook while the other little ones played the part of the Stormtroopers and Empire generals and chased after ‘Bodhi’ with their hands held like phasors, hunting him down.

Don’t be like Bodhi Rook.

He escaped.

 

The first time FN-2187 is sent out for active duty, he can’t make the first shot.

The rebel almost escapes. He is funny. Makes jokes. Hiding his fear? Or just without it?

 

He breaks the rebel out of prison. Bodhi Rook was a pilot. But FN-2187 was never taught. He was a soldier, not a pilot. Training was deemed unnecessary.

They fly away from the First Order ship. FN-2187 is flying away. He feels a force around him, like the spirit of Bodhi Rook is flying with them, escaping once more.

They crash on the planet. The rebel – Poe Dameron, he said – disappeared, probably dead, under the sand, but not before he gave him a name. Finn. FN-2187 likes it. It makes him feel…real.

Finn sleeps in a hollow in the desert that night. He pulls Poe’s jacket close around him in the chill night air. He thinks of Poe. The man who saved him. He thinks of Bodhi Rook. The man who gave him the courage to try.

He looks up at the stars and knows the people he ran from will be looking for him. They will try to destroy him like they did Bodhi Rook. 

But he got away. He has escaped too.

That night and every night after, he looks up at the stars, free, and murmurs, “For Bodhi Rook.”

 

III.

When General Organa first saw the two of them together, she thought it was a flashback to the days long ago, before even Alderaan was destroyed. But it wasn’t, this was the present day. 

She hadn’t known the defector well, but she knew Cassian Andor, and had seen the two of them together a little before they left on their fateful mission.

And here it was again, history repeating. The rebel and the defector. The pilot and the soldier. The looks on their faces.

She could only hope their story would not be as tragic as those who had gone before.

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> im on tumblr [here](http://www.ismylifejustfantasy.tumblr.com) at ismylifejustfantasy. ask box is open. come yell with me about star wars or anything really :)


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